The embodiments relate generally to collaborative user sessions, and more specifically to managing assets used in collaborative user sessions.
Collaborative sessions include the use of tools by users to collaborate in real-time over a network. The tools may include, for example, instant messaging, real-time file editing, video presentations, audio presentations, telephonic communications, video communications, and other types of single and multimedia interactive applications.
A typical session may include a number of users who interact using one or more tools. For example, a number of users may collaborate by a user presenting a document using a document sharing tool, while conducting a collaborative discussion using an audio/video tool. The session may be organized by a user who sends an invitation to the other users. The invitation may include identifiers of each session participant such as, for example, email addresses of the participants, the time of the session, the tools that will be used in the session, and an identifier of the session. At the scheduled session time, the participants may access the system using the identifier and join the session using various tools.
Systems used for collaborative sessions often include servers or multi-point control units (MCUs) that coordinate the session, perform processing of the collaborative tools and session data, and facilitate the networking of the participants. Particular MCUs may be limited to processing particular types of session tools. For example, one MCU on a system may be designed to process audio and video tools, while a second MCU may only process audio tools. An MCU includes a number of ports that may be used by a user to communicate with the MCU and participate in a session. Typically each participant in a session uses a port to participate in a session. An MCU is often an expensive component in a collaborative system, and the number of ports for a particular MCU may limit the number of users that may simultaneously participate in collaborative sessions. Organizations that use collaborative systems often reserve the MCU resources for a session when the invitation for the session is sent by a participant or administrator. For example, if a proposed session includes ten participants, ten MCU ports may be reserved at the scheduled session time for the session. The reserved MCU ports are not accessible during the scheduled session time for other sessions that may be desired by other users of the collaborative system. The session invitations are often sent well in advance of the scheduled session time, and the actual requirement for MCU port usage is difficult to predict. Thus, if three of the ten ports are not used during the session, they remain reserved and unused during the reserved time. In many instances, the unused ports may be desired by other system users for other sessions, but may not be accessed because they have been allocated through reservations for the first session.